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"Tenel Ka, meet our friend Zekk."

Tenel Ka blinked once. "It is a pleasure."

The wiry boy struggled against the restraining cords. "Likewise," he said sheepishly. "Now, if you wouldn't mind untying me?"

Tenel Ka flicked her wrist to release the fibercord. While Zekk indignantly brushed himself off, Jaina introduced their Wookiee friend Lowbacca. Jaina grinned as she watched Zekk. Though the older boy had a slight build, he was tough as blaster-proof armor. Under the smudges of dirt and grime on his cheeks, she thought, he was probably rather nice-looking-but then, she wasn't one to talk about smudges on the face, was she?

Recovering himself, Zekk raised his eyebrow,., and flashed a roguish smile. "I've been waiting for you guys," he said. "We've got plenty of stuff to see and do... and I need your help to salvage something."

"Where are we headed?" Jacen asked.

Zekk grinned. "Someplace we're not supposed to go - of course."

Jaina laughed. "Well then, what are we waiting for?"

Jacen looked out at the sprawling city and thought of all the places he had yet to explore. Coruscant had been the government world not only of the New Republic, but also of the Empire, and of the Old Republic before that. Skyscrapers covered virtually every open space, built higher and higher as the centuries passed and new governments moved in. The tallest buildings were kilometers high. Many had been destroyed during the bloody battles of the Rebellion and had recently been rebuilt by huge construction droids. Other parts of the planetwide city remained a jumble of decay and wreckage, their abandoned lower levels and piled garbage forgotten over the years.

The buildings were so high that the gaps between them formed sheer canyons that vanished to a point in the dark depths where sunlight never penetrated. Catwalks and pedestrian tubes linked the buildings, weaving them together into a giant maze. The lower forty or fifty floors were generally restricted from normal traffic; only refugees and daring big-game hunters in search of monstrous urban scavenger beasts were willing to risk venturing into the shadowy underworld.

Like a native guide, Zekk led the four friends down connecting elevators, slide tubes, and rusty metal stairs, and across the catwalks from one building to another. Jacen followed, exhilarated. He wasn't sure he knew exactly where they were anymore, but he loved to explore new places, never knowing what sort of interesting plants or creatures he might find.

The skyscraper walls rose like glass-and-metal cliff faces, with only a narrow wedge of daylight shining from above. As Zekk took the companions farther down, the buildings seemed broader, the walls rougher. Mushy blobs of fungus grew from cracks in the massive construction blocks; fringed lichens, some glowing with phosphorescent light, caked the walls.

Lowbacca looked decidedly uneasy, and Jacen remembered that the lanky Wookiee had grown up on Kashyyyk, where the deep forest underworld was an extremely dangerous place.

High overhead Jacen could hear the cries of sleek winged creatures-predatory hawk-bats that lived in the city on Coruscant. The breeze picked up, carrying with it heavy, warm scents of rotting garbage from far below. His stomach grew queasy, but he pressed on. Zekk didn't seem to notice. Tenel Ka, Lowie, and Jaina hurried behind them. They proceeded across a roofed-in walkway where many of the transparisteel ceiling panels had been smashed out, leaving only a wire reinforcement mesh that whistled in the breezes.

Jacen noted etched symbols along the walls, all of them vaguely threatening. Some reminded Jacen of curved knives and fanged mouths, but the most common design showed a sharp triangle surrounding a targeting cross. It looked to Jacen like the tip of an arrow heading straight between his eyes. "Hey, Zekk, what's that design?" He pointed to the triangular symbol.

Frowning, Zekk glanced around them in all directions and then whispered,

"It means we have to be very quiet down here and move as fast as we can.

We don't want to go into